Let’s see...
My guy and I have been together close to 15 years, but when we FIRST met, I hated him. I was dating someone else at the time, and I woke up to the sound of strangers in my living room. Turned out that my at-the-time boyfriend decided to invite a bunch of people over to get wasted. I walk out just in time to see the most wasted of the group eating paper piece by tiny piece because everyone else kept daring him to. No idea why. I ended up yelling at my BF and making everyone leave, and the paper muncher was so slooooooooooow to leave, I practically shoved him through the door and slammed it on him.
... I was a bit... um... rude back then. Angry. I had massive anger issues in my 20’s. There, I said it.
Fast forward two years. I left the guy I was dating and moved across the country, to California. One of my friends in Mass constantly came to me for advice about this guy she REALLY liked, which led to me getting to know him over aol instant messenger so I could help HIM survive my friend’s intense crush. We begin talking daily, even playing FFXI together.
Fast forward another couple of years, I decide to move back to Massachusetts. I FINALLY was going to meet this guy, as we had both admitted to silly crushes long before I decided to move again. I was getting settled in at my friend’s apartment where I would be staying for a while when he walked in, and I immediately dismissed him as that paper eater from way back, didn’t even really say much to him beyond, “hi.”
... then he told me who he was, and asked me if I would kick him if he kissed me.
I did kick him.
We’ve broken up and pieced things back together more times than I can count over the first ten years, between his cheating and my anger issues, but things have been better since we learned to communicate and stop trying to force each other into the perfect form we each had in our minds.
I don’t want to be in the contest. I just wanted to share this to say love comes from unexpected places, takes you on an adventure, and can sometimes try your patience beyond reason. If it doesn’t work, it wasn’t supposed to... but struggles and hard conversations are needed for anything to work in the end.
I hope things get better, no matter which way things go.